Democrats take command of House - Americas - International Herald Tribune

Democrats have seized control of the U.S. House of Representatives and defeated at least four Republican senators, riding a wave of voter discontent with President George W. Bush and the war in Iraq.

But the fate of the U.S. Senate remained in doubt Wednesday, as races for Republican-held seats in Montana and Virginia remained too close to call. Democrats would need both seats to win control of the Senate as well.

In Montana, Jon Tester, the Democratic challenger, led Senator Conrad Burns, a Republican, by a narrow margin. The race in Virginia - between another Republican incumbent, Senator George Allen, and Jim Webb, a Democrat - was so close that a recount seemed almost unavoidable.

That prospect could mean prolonged uncertainty over control of the Senate, since a recount can be requested only after the results are officially certified on Nov. 27, according to the Virginia state board of elections.

But the Democrats' victory in the House - overcoming a legendarily efficient White House political machine - represented a dramatic turnaround in the fortunes of the party and signaled a sea change in the political dynamics in Washington after a dozen years during which Republicans controlled Congress for all but a brief period.

In a contentious election, voters in the center of the electorate aided Democrats in their quest to overtake Republicans.

Exit polls indicated that the U.S. economy, corruption, terrorism and Iraq were extremely important factors in the minds of about 4 in 10 voters. At the same time, 3 in 10 said that "values" and immigration had been extremely important topics.

No less significant for the long-term political fortunes of their party, Democrats were winning governors' seats across the country - notably in Ohio, a state that has been at the center of the past two presidential elections.

By Wednesday, Democrats had picked up 26 seats in the House, knocking off Republican incumbents from New Hampshire to Florida, officials in both parties said. Although results from the West Coast had not yet come in, neither party anticipated that the basic outcome would change once all votes were counted.

Among the faces that will be absent from the halls of Congress next year are some high-profile and long-serving members of the Republican Party, including Representatives Charles Bass of New Hampshire, E. Clay Shaw Jr. of Florida, J.D. Hayworth of Arizona; Jim Ryun of Kansas and Nancy Johnson of Connecticut.

The parade of departing Republican senators included Mike DeWine of Ohio, Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island and Jim Talent of Missouri, who conceded his race to Claire McCaskill well after midnight.

By any measure, the result was a sobering defeat for the White House and the Republicans, who just two years ago with Bush's re-election, had claimed a mandate to shape both foreign and domestic policy and set out to establish long-term dominance for the Republican Party.

In light of the defeat, Bush's aides were striking a more conciliatory tone as they faced the prospect of two years of divided government and a clearly enlivened Democratic Party.

"We always recognized this was going to be a very challenging year," Ken Mehlman, the Republican Party chairman, said on CNN. "We have to continue to work and try to work on a bipartisan basis to accomplish things." In the Senate, one of the Republicans' top targets - Senator Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey - survived a nearly $5 million onslaught by the Republican Party, defeating Thomas Kean.

In her victory speech Wednesday, Representative Nancy Pelosi, who is likely to become speaker of the House, took note of the importance of the war in the outcome.

"Nowhere did the American people make it more clear that we need a new direction than in Iraq," she said, speaking to cheers. "We can not continue down this catastrophic path. So we say to the president, 'Mr. President, we need a new direction in Iraq. Let us work together to find a solution to the war in Iraq.'"

Beyond the change in party power, the elections' outcome signaled that the House was in for something of an ideological scramble. While the result was marked by the defeat of a procession of Republican moderates - from New Hampshire, Connecticut and Florida - the new class of Democrats include congressmen-elect who are considerably more moderate than many of their new brethren. In Indiana, Representative John Hostettler, a Republican, was defeated by Brad Ellsworth, a Democrat and sheriff who opposes abortion rights and same-sex marriage.

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Democrats picked up six governors' seats currently held by Republicans, most significantly in Ohio, where Representative Ted Strickland won. Strickland's victory, along with the defeat of DeWine by Sherrod Brown, signaled that Ohio was no longer the Republican bulwark that it has long been.

At stake was Republican control of both the House and Senate in the most competitive midterm election since Republicans seized control in 1994. That was the last time one party took control of both houses away from the other. This year, Democrats were looking to win 15 seats to capture the House and 6 to win the Senate.

The day included concerns about electronic voting machines being used for the first time in many parts of the country, as well as about new voter registration laws, often strict. Problems were reported in a dozen states, including Indiana and Ohio. In parts of eight states, polling hours were extended.

Bush cast his vote in Crawford, Texas, then returned to Washington to watch the returns at the White House with a group that included Mehlman and Karl Rove.

Throughout the day, Republican Party officials said they were encouraged by reports of what they said was high turnout in typically Republican parts of the country, as well as counts of early votes and absentee ballots. They disputed early exit poll findings that suggested that Republican candidates might be in trouble, though they acknowledged the problems that the party's candidates faced this year.

The voting put an end to an often bitter campaign that pitted a Democratic Party frustrated by years of defeats against a White House and a Republican Party acutely aware that losing control of the House or Senate would fundamentally alter the remainder of Bush's presidency.

The Republicans went into the campaign with institutional advantages.

Because of redistricting, few incumbents appeared vulnerable initially. Republicans also had what both parties viewed as the considerable advantage of a powerful and sophisticated get-out- the-vote machine that the party began putting together as soon as Bush took office in 2001.

Once again, Republicans had a financial advantage, even though vigorous fund-raising efforts by Democrats narrowed the historic gap. Over all, Republicans spent $559 million, compared with $456 million by Democrats, according to records filed with the Federal Election Commission.

And Rove made clear that he believed Republicans could again roll to victory by emphasizing terrorism and national security issues, as they have in both national elections since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

But by the middle of October, Republicans found they were struggling with what several described as the worst political environment in a generation, making it easier, according to exit polls Tuesday, for Democrats to achieve their central strategic objective: Turning this election into a national referendum on Bush's leadership and, more generally, on Republican stewardship.

The war in Iraq deteriorated throughout the autumn, the American death toll spiked in October, and public opinion turned more firmly against the conflict.

Eight in 10 voters who said they approved of the war in Iraq voted Republican, and 8 in 10 voters who said they disapproved voted Democratic, the exit polls said.

In contrast to 2004 and 2002, when the president was sought after by Republican candidates throughout the country, Bush was extremely unpopular in many parts of the country this year, limiting the places where he was welcome to campaign.

He was shunned by his party's candidate for governor in Florida on Monday, and Democrats ran hundreds of advertisements featuring their Republican opponents standing or sitting next to Bush. Nearly 4 in 10 voters leaving the polls said that their vote Tuesday was cast against Bush.

The Republicans also struggled with corruption scandals, including the resignation in September of Representative Mark Foley, Republican of Florida, after he admitted sending sexually inappropriate messages to teenage pages.

By the end of the campaign, Republicans said they had been forced to spend money in races that should never have been in play, including the one to replace Foley and another for the seat once held by Tom DeLay of Texas, the former Republican majority leader who resigned from Congress after being indicted on charges of conspiring to violate Texas election laws.